Leaky roof? Favorite movie star dead? Wrong candidate leading in the polls? Writer's strike got you broke and hungry? In these uncertain times you can always find solace in the hot, open-faced turkey sandwich at Pepy's Galley. Pepy's is the coffee shop attached to the Mar Vista Bowl. I've been going there for nigh on seventeen years. Here's why: home-roasted turkey breast nestled on top of a chewy slice of white bread with a pale spooge of jizz-like gravy shot across it's open, schoolgirl face. Nestled beside it is a Matterhorn of mashers and a bright, jiggly mound of cranberries with the can striations still visible.... I tell you, this is quintessential diner food at its best. It's a comestible eider down--warm, pillowy, super-snuggly. You can tuck in and relax. You won't be challenged by any unfamiliar spices. No pan-asian twists, nothing post-modern, its not a hipster version of a sandwich. None of that ceci n'est pas une hot turkey sandwich crap. It simply is. Oh, and no scary, fresh vegetables to negotiate either. Everything straight from the can, just like the lunch ladies used to serve in the school cafeteria, back in those simpler times, when ketchup was a vegetable and schools had cafeterias.

Foodies will sneer. Wear a fedora and dark glasses when you go. But know that it's there for you whenever you need it. I ate one the afternoon following the Northridge quake, tucking into its gluteny-goodness as the plate glass windows looking out onto Venice Bl. rattled with aftershocks. When pregnant with my first child, only the turkey sam would quell the churning of my stomach. Now that baby is negotiating puberty and I find my world turned upside-down once again. So I fled to Pepy's the other day and had taken my first brain-stem-stimulating bite when I put down my fork and shot this snap. LA Observed readers should know about this, I thought. Yes, we're worldly and sophisticated, and our fair city offers many culinary thrills. But some days it's nice to lower the bar and just eat something that Homer Simpson would enjoy. For added pleasure points you can exit through the attached lounge/bar, grab a Rolling Rock, and go bowl a few frames next door. Mmmmm...